Cartoon Network Makes Me Want To Cry (But At Least It's Not All Bad News)

 



 

This has been a bad month for Geek-centric television.  First off, there was the announcement that the Sci-Fi Channel was renaming itself and will now be called the incredly dumb name SyFy.  Now comes news from Cartoon Network that their 2009-2010 season will be featuring a number of new shows and a few of them are not Cartoons!

 

Maybe it's just me, but I'd expect a TV station called Cartoon Network to only feature . . . you know . . . cartoons.  But there I go again trying to apply perfectly good logic to corporate thinking.  Here's a summary of what to expect from the new Not All Cartoon Network next season.

 

Highlights include entering into the reality TV genre, creating a new sports-centric programming block, and introducing 19 new programs, pilots, and movies, including six that are live-action (umm...) as well as 164 episodes of returning series. In doing so, Cartoon Network stepped out on its evolutionary path to become what it described as a "dominant youth culture brand," that not only understands boys, including boys 6-11, but girls and older kids too, while creating "un-sanitized" "TV for kids, not kids TV".

 

Good god.  Where do I even start?  A reality show?  Six live action shows? The network trying to define itself as the "dominant youth culture brand"?  No.  I know where I'll start.  I'll start with the bit about the sports-centric programming.  That is, afterall, the most egregious sin mentioned in that paragraph.

 

Cartoon Network is creating a new Saturday afternoon sports focused programming block titled CN AMPT, underscoring its new deal with the NBA and relationship with Turner Sports. NBA commissioner David Stern, who discussed Cartoon Network's new partnership with the NBA announced earlier in the week, revealed that Boston Celtic Eddie House and his 7-year-old son Jaelen will be the stars of the first project together, the short-form series My Dad's a Pro. So pleased with the NBA's new relationship with the network, Stern quipped to those assembled, "If I were a buyer, I would buy."

 

If I were a buyer, I'd be selling like there's no tomorrow.  My Dad's A Pro?  Are you kidding me!?!  This sounds like the same kinds of backwards thinking that ruled animated shows throughout most of the 90's.  Remember all of those really bad cartoons that tried so hard to be "extreme" in the 90's?  Yeah, neither do I.  Wanna know why?  They were crap and we've forgotten about them already.  They were so bad we blocked them from memory. 

 

At least I can take comfort though in the thought that CN AMPT probably won't last for more than a season or two before they realize that the ratings are crap and they cancel the shows in the block and send them to the unmourned cartoon hell they belong.  Cartoons and sports do not mix.  There are only two exceptions to this rule.

 

• 1.  If Goofy is learning to play a new sport, that's ok.  His old sports cartoons were great.  Like the time he learned to water ski and accidentally entered a race, and the announcer called him Racer X.  Classic!

 

• 2.  If it's the Scooby Doo team meeting the Harlem Globetrotters.

 

Other than those two examples, sports and cartoons should never ever merge.  The results are usually a craptastic show that kids will summarily ignore.

 

At least it wasn't all bad news though.  There were a few bright gems to be found amongst all of the bad stuff.  Batman: Brave and the Bold has been renewed for a second season, which is awesome!  Clone Wars will be coming back for a second season as well, and the popular new version of Ben 10 where he's a 16 year old is coming back too.

 

The best news though, as far as I'm concerned, is that Genndy Tartakovsky has a new show coming out.  You may remember Genndy from some of the amazingly awesome shows he's created such as Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab, and the first and coolest Clone Wars animated series.  His new show is called Sym-Bionic Titan, and it looks like this:

 



 

You can always tell the mark of an amazing show when even one photo from it makes you want to run out and pre-order a copy of the entire first season box set right now.  That's what this does to me.  A Giant see-through robot wrestling a dinosaur in the middle of a downtown area???

 

Sold!!!

 

Why isn't this show on TV right now?  I don't want to wait for the fall!  I need to see it now, now, now!!!

 

God bless you Genndy Tartakovsky.  At least you still understand what people want to see in a cartoon series.